The State Department has told Congress that it intends to approve $8 billion in purchases of U.S.-made arms by Israel, the department’s office in charge of arms transfers said on Friday.
It could be the final set of arms transfers to Israel by President Biden, and represents his administration’s continued support for a longtime partner even as the enormous death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has fueled growing opposition within his party to further weapons sales.
The weapons package includes bombs, artillery shells, missiles for fighter jets and helicopters, and GPS guidance systems for bombs, according to the informal notification provided to two committees of Congress. Certain orders for weapon systems would go into a manufacturing pipeline, with delivery possibly taking up to two years.
But some types of bombs that Israel has used in 15 months of war in Gaza are scheduled for delivery early this year, if Congress and the State Department give final approval, one U.S. official said on Saturday.
They include 2,800 unguided MK-82 bombs, which are 500-pound weapons, the official added. About $6 billion of the $8 billion package is made up of four cases, or sets of sales, and those are mainly bombs and GPS guidance systems for unguided bombs, said the official, who agreed to discuss the sensitive weapons sales on the condition of anonymity.
Israel would use money provided by the United States to buy the weapons. The annual aid had been about $3 billion, but Mr. Biden increased that amount after Israel began waging war in Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks by Hamas.
During the informal notification period, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee are expected to review the proposed sales and ask questions of the State Department. They can hold up the transfers if they have doubts. The top Democrats on both committees have been more skeptical of arms transfers to Israel, while the top Republicans have quickly granted approval.
Once the four top members grant approval to the State Department, the agency would give formal notification to Congress, which essentially means the proposed sales would go through. Congress would need a two-thirds vote in each house to pass a resolution blocking the sales.
The informal notification was reported earlier by Axios.
Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has not given approval to the State Department for a $680 million weapons package that the Biden administration sent to the two committees under informal notification in the second half of last year, the U.S. official said. That package is made up of small-diameter bombs and guidance kits.
Some Democrats in Congress and their aides are certain to be furious at the administration for trying to push through the $8 billion package of weapons sales to Israel.
The political-military bureau of the State Department, which oversees arms transfers, issued a statement on Saturday morning, after this story was first published. It said: “The president has made clear Israel has a right to defend its citizens, consistent with international law and international humanitarian law, and to deter aggression from Iran and its proxy organizations. We will continue to provide the capabilities necessary for Israel’s defense.”
Weapons transfers to Israel have been a contentious issue that has dogged Mr. Biden among liberals. In the presidential election in November, some progressive voters and some Muslim American voters said they could not bring themselves to back Mr. Biden because of his steadfast support of Israel.
The Israeli military, supplied with U.S. weapons, has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, including many civilians, during the war, according to the health ministry in Gaza. Critics of Israel’s conduct of the war have beseeched Mr. Biden to withhold weapons aid to Israel to pressure it to curb its military operations, which have demolished most of Gaza.
Mr. Biden and his top aides, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, have tried to walk a fine line, sometimes mildly criticizing Israeli actions even as they kept up robust arms sales and said Israel has the right to defend itself.
At one point, Mr. Biden said he was withholding a single shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel to try to dissuade it from destroying Rafah, a city in southern Gaza, but the Israeli military reduced most of Rafah to rubble anyway.
At another point, the Biden administration held up an order of 24,000 assault rifles out of concern that settlers in the West Bank could use the rifles in violence against Palestinians there.
President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has a record of strongly backing Israel and supported robust weapons shipments to the Jewish state in his first administration, has been urging Israel and Hamas to enter into a cease-fire deal before he takes office this month.
American officials working under Mr. Biden are trying to make a cease-fire deal now to free hostages abducted in the Oct. 7 attacks. However, for his final trip, Mr. Blinken has no plans of returning to the Middle East, which he has visited about a dozen times as secretary of state. The State Department announced Friday that he is visiting South Korea, Japan and France starting this coming weekend.
Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said that in France, Mr. Blinken will meet with senior officials to talk about “Europe, the Middle East and beyond.”
